The Letter Writer

About 50% of India's women are illiterate. What that means is that for everyday tasks like filling forms, operating bank accounts, and even communicating with loved ones through letters they need to take help from someone. The traditional letter-writer hence continues to be a fixture on the Indian landscape. Almost all letter-writers are men, and they generally sit with their type-writers and letter pads in front of post-offices and type forms or write the personal correspondence for people who are illiterate. Here a woman is explaining what she wants written in her letter which the letter-writer writes out by hand.

This photo is in the Getty Images gallery. To license please contact them here

Martin Prest -- thank you for acknowledging and letting me know Martin! As a writer I too work from home -- only that, people think "Oh Rita's home, so I'll leave my keys with her so my children can collect it from her when they get home," etc. etc. and I'm learning to tell them that I'm home for my work, not theirs :-)

Rita, I learned about you through frizztext, who has a wordpress blog highlighting the best of Flickr photo sites. I have reblogged about you at granbee.wordpress.com, signed the petition, and posted this photo and write-up on my Facebook timeline. My daughter and son-in-law worked and lived in Bangalore for almost three years about three years ago. She now teaches many in NYC with such stories in their family backgrounds!

Hi, are you aware that Wikimedia Commons lists this photo under a Creative Commons license? I am working with a university instructor who would like to include your photo in a chapter of his non-profit e-textbook. Your photo was selected because of the Creative Commons license, but the Flickr copyright and link to Getty indicate that we would need to purchase access. Please let me know if it is possible to gain permission to use your photo. amckinn at illinois dot edu Thanks!

Hi, are you aware that Wikimedia Commons lists this photo under a Creative Commons license? I am working with a university instructor who would like to include your photo in a chapter of his non-profit e-textbook. Your photo was selected because of the Creative Commons license, but the Flickr copyright and link to Getty indicate that we would need to purchase access. Please let me know if it is possible to gain permission to use your photo. amckinn at illinois dot edu Thanks!